Brian Hearn

Brian Hearn is an interdisciplinary arts writer, curator and consultant active in both film and visual arts. For two decades he has shared his passion and expertise with arts organizations large and small, from art museums to film festivals, galleries to collections. He and his wife Sarah recently collaborated on a new art project, a baby boy.

Few creatures spark unconditional joy like the butterfly. One of its most regal and familiar species, the monarch, annually appears sailing along the stiff winds of the Great Plains. Their 3,000-mile migration route stretches from the fir forests of Michoacán, Mexico, all the way to Canada and back.

It’s a man’s world that Nicky Nodjoumi paints and that hasn’t been a good thing for the planet or its inhabitants. His exhibition of bold figurative oil paintings “The Long Day,” now on view at Block Artspace, burrows under the skin and into the mind with bizarre depictions of cabalistic power brokers acting out their […]

Bruce Hartman, an accomplished local museum director and collector, is helping Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, expand the canon of American art history. Hartman’s recent loans of exceptional, if little known, 20th-century Native American works from his personal collection have given Crystal Bridges’ Modern permanent collection galleries a refreshed look while showing the way forward for a more inclusive, nuanced picture of American Modernism.

Are curators really just frustrated artists? One senses the pent-up energy coursing through “NUANCE: Recent Paintings by Sherry Cromwell-Lacy” now at the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center. Remarkably, this is the artist’s debut solo exhibition — 39 small- to medium-sized abstract oil and acrylic paintings, produced over the last four years. Cromwell-Lacy, an accomplished curator, educator, and […]

Angela Dufresne is an unabashed painter. Undaunted by the aesthetic ebbs and flows of her medium she instead has immersed herself in its rich and varied history. In “covering” moments of visual culture, like a band covering a classic tune, the artist seeks to renew and recontextualize painting for a contemporary culture drowning in its […]

One of the best-kept secrets you can discover on First Fridays is housed in a company headquarters at 310 W. 19th Terrace. In fall 2017, Travois, a Kansas City-based consulting firm focused on promoting housing and economic development in Native American communities, launched an intertribal, international exhibition series dedicated to indigenous artists. It encompasses drawing, painting, textiles, architecture, jewelry, sculpture and photography, curated by experts in the field.